Michelle Phillips and Dr. Barbara Campbell arose early in the morning to prepare for their departure in Alvin. However, in truth, their dive began the night before, at the pre-dive meeting. At this meeting, chief scientist Craig Cary meets with Alvin's pilot and the two observers to review his proposed dive plan. While not every dive can follow the directions of the dive plan exactly, the dive plan is the working document that guides the general flow of the dive. Barb and Michelle also are briefed for Extreme 2004's first "Phone Call to the Deep," which will occur during their dive tomorrow.

Although they are called "observers," the scientists that accompany Alvin's pilot to the seafloor have several responsibilities. The primary responsibility of the observers is to assist the pilot. The pilot looks through an acrylic port directly out the front of the sub, overlooking the scientific basket. The two observers look out the side ports -- there is one on the right side of the sub (called the starboard side) and one on the left side of the boat (the port side). With only three ports, there are rather large blind spots. The observers must alert the pilot if the sub is dangerously close to outcroppings or extremely hot water, which can be seen as hazy areas in the water.

The second job of the observers is to take extremely detailed notes concerning the time that certain events occurred. Alvin has several data observing systems, including extremely accurate navigational tools and equipment to measure important abiotic (nonliving) conditions such as temperature. The observers record when certain scientific equipment is used, being sure to note the time and exact location.

It's amazing to think that in this vast ocean, Alvin can return to the same place to retrieve equipment like the "Prototrap" samplers that Karen talked about in previous journal entries. Several pieces of equipment are deployed for days and retrieved on later dives. It is only because of the accurate navigation system of Alvin and the extremely detailed notes of the scientists that equipment can be deployed and recovered. To check out some more of the high-tech equipment that the scientists are using when they're down in the sub, go to Tools of the Trade. Tomorrow, we'll be looking at two pieces of equipment that are playing a major role in this expedition.

The third job of the observers is to control the pan-and-tilt cameras mounted on the top of the sub. Video data has become an integral tool of scientists. It serves as a visual record of the dive and can allow the scientists who were on Atlantis to see what the observers saw. Both the in-depth notes and video serve as ways for the observers to explain the intricacies of the dive to the entire scientific party. Dr. Alison Murray said that the video is a critical tool for remembering what transpired during the dive, especially when you're looking at the data a couple of months from now.

For today's dive, the pilot and observers had the additional responsibility of talking to schools ranging from Alaska to Delaware. For more on the "Phone Call to the Deep," see Karen's journal.

Meanwhile, on the surface, Dr. Shannon Williamson and Shellie Bench have had a setback in their work with the Large Volume Water Sampler (LVWS). This is a device that allows them to sample large volumes of water from the vent sites in sealed bags. Today, as Alvin Pilot Anthony Tarantino was putting the LVWS into position, the sampling intake tube broke, and the LVWS would not work. Once the equipment was back up on deck through the expert work of the deck crew, Shannon and Shellie saw that they needed to replace the sampling tube and redeploy it tomorrow. Although the sampling was not successful, Shannon and Shellie were not discouraged, but instead fixed the problem and prepared to deploy tomorrow.

Each night when Alvin returns to the deck, the observers begin writing their dive log, which we'll be sharing with you on the Dive Log section of the web site. The post-dive meeting occurs just after dinner. The successes and failures are examined in depth. The observers share their notes and accounts of what transpired during the dive. The scientists often have many questions.

"What was the temperature at this particular site?" asks Dr. Monika Bright of the observers.

Paging through her notes carefully, Michelle Phillips replies, "Between 35 and 60 degrees Celsius."

Without those careful observations and the cooperation of the scientific team, they might lose important clues that could unlock some of the secrets we have yet to unravel.

I return from the first post-dive briefing to the Computer Lab, where Ky Hacker stands watching the video screen. "Look at this," he says. The screen shows us the view from Alvin: beds of Riftia (tubeworms), their red tips waving; spiny spider crabs stepping as slowly as stilt-walkers; and vent crabs skittering around. We also can see the piece of Alvin that's just below the camera: the port manipulator. And then there's a point of white, followed by a long, ribbed antenna and another just like it ... and a pointy face ... and an armored white body ... and white creeping legs. It's a giant crab, climbing up the manipulator straight toward the camera. "Whoa!"

Hold on, it's not so gigantic. It's just that Alvin takes pictures of things it glides over, so that they seem smaller, and this guy seems enormous in comparison. (According to Monika Bright, the invading crustacean was a galatheid crab. Check out the video clip on the Neat Stuff entry for today.)

Ky's job is to organize all the video Alvin takes during a dive. He works through the night to get the scientists the footage they need. "They need video to document everything important that happens," he says. "Every probe that gets inserted as well as the temperature probed, every trap that's laid, and sips that are taken from a smoker."

For the scientists, it's vital to know exactly where things happen and what the conditions are where they take place. All the factors must be accounted for, and the video makes that possible.

"Plus we like pretty pictures to show when we give talks," Ian McDonald adds.

Dave Sims, the ship-to-science support group technician for Atlantis, makes duplicates of Alvin's videotapes and passes them to Ky by about 9 p.m.

"The originals are put away in the vault," says Ky. "I take the dupes and make VHS and DVD versions of all six tapes."

It takes more than six hours. Ky goes to bed and sleeps until noon. Then he gets hold of the Dive Plan for the dive he's working on and carefully selects the sections of the tapes to capture for highlighted events, using FinalCut Pro, a software program.

"They're all on a hard drive now," Ky says. "But soon they will go on DVDs and the Internet and go their own way."

Eighteen years old, Ky is traveling and working for a while between high school in New Zealand and college. He is the youngest member of our team. (Eighteen is the youngest age allowed.) We don't have any college students who are undergraduates, but there are several grad students including Michelle Phillips, who's returning to shore after this trip to continue her studies and to teach marine biology. Here, she's collecting Pompeii worms to study how they deal with high temperatures at a molecular level.

Michelle is the starboard observer in Alvin today, traveling along with biologist Barbara Campbell and Pilot Tony Tarantino. They'll be taking today's "Phone Call to the Deep" from the Extreme 2004 students by way of the bridge on Atlantis.

The "Phone Call to the Deep" comes to Dr. Craig Cary at Atlantis's Toplab and is sent down to the sub. Mike and I were there to see how things worked. Pilot Bruce Strickrott was at the controls, sending the communications between the ship and the sub. Also on hand were Captain George Silva and Alvin Technician and Pilot-in-Training Mark Spear, who were each going to field a question. Toplab is a small room with windows that have one of the best views on Atlantis. (As on the bridge, the windows have windshield wipers like the ones on 18-wheeler trucks -- very cool.)

As each question came for Atlantis, the person who planned to answer moved into position to take the phone. With questions for Alvin, things were a little more complicated. Bruce had to greet the school on the Toplab phone, then open the communication channel to allow the caller's voice to travel to the sub.

Atlantis talks to Alvin via the UQC, which Tony said is the nickname for the underwater telephone communication system. Its not a radio, because radio waves can't pass through water, the UQC is acoustic, using sound. Acoustic waves are similar to radio waves, but they travel at a different frequency. How different? "You can hear them," Tony explains.

Here's a question for you: There's a delay between transmissions sent and received. The rate at which sound travels through water is 1,500 meters per second. If Alvin is 2,500 meters down, how long is the delay?

Down in the sub, Tony, Barbara, and Michelle listened as each student asked his or her school's question. Then, when the student asking the question said "Over," it was the sub's turn to answer. Tony would switch on the UQC and either answer the question himself or turn things over to Barbara or Michelle to answer.

Barbara said, "I answered questions about whether the bottom of the ocean could be colonized by humans, about what's it like at the bottom of the ocean, and about the life cycle of the Pompeii worm."

One of her questions was posed by students at the New York school where her sister teaches. She liked the idea of talking to a student who might have been in her sister's class. I wondered what other ideas Barbara would have liked to share with students, besides her answers. "I would want to say that it's totally unlike anything you would imagine it to be. The experience of being down there -- there's just nothing, then the pilot turns on the lights, and there's this whole living ecosystem down there!"

Part of the feeling of nothingness before reaching the bottom comes, Barbara says, from the way it feels as Alvin descends. "It's so smooth. As soon as you drop below 30 meters, it's totally weightless. You feel no movement. It gets dark at about 500 meters, and you start to see glowing, bioluminescent things passing by the window." She says you're going to fast to see them, though. Alvin descends at 30 meters per minute.

Barbara described fish, bioluminescent creatures that appeared as glimmers of light on the way down. Then, at the bottom, there are fish, sea anemones, and starfish. "Michelle saw two different kinds of octopuses," she says. "But they were on her side!"

She goes on, "I sat in the pilot seat for a little while. It was nice to sit there and observe Alvinellas, (Alvinella pompejana, the Pompeii worm.) It was so different from seeing them on video."